Sunday, 16 January 2011

The contemporary story is of students Nick Blaketon and Alice Linwood who meet as undergraduates at Hull University. Very different but drawn together. It’s what is behind the reason they’re drawn together that gives this book its amazing twist. The predatory lecturer and his past have a role to play and also a story from a whole lot further back. Linda Acaster gets inside the head of her characters in a way that not many authors manage, so that as a reader you revel in their triumphs, and are crushed by their despair. A compelling tale where the interwoven stories pick you up at the start and rush you along to the end.

Saturday, 15 January 2011

This is a personal 5* because this book meant so much to me when I was 8 years old. Written as a children's adventure, it's something I can still read today (very occasionally, but it holds memories of childhood for me). It's the story of Sheila whose parents go away and leave her in the care of her aunt. Almost at once, sinister things start to happen. With over 200 pages it looks as though it should be a daunting read for any child but the ones I know who have read it have found it unputdownable. Bulldog refers to the fictional Bulldog Drummond idolised by heroine Sheila who wants to be as brave and resourceful as he is. I was never a huge fan of the Bulldog Drummond books myself and do not think they have travelled across the decades. I couldn't read them nowadays. The style of Bulldog Sheila or the Gang is light and easy and in many ways hasn't dated. However, it was published in 1936 and reflects the attitudes of the day in ways that can be quite disconcerting. But mainly it is a brilliant adventure story.

Sunday, 9 January 2011

An incredible tale that almost didn't make it to publication. Barbara Tate tells the story of her time as a prostitute's maid in Soho. This is easy reading and it's for the story itself that I rate it. Her draft was much longer, so I'm told - more the story of Soho in those years than her own and May's story which she thought wouldn't interest anyone.

On several levels it's an amazing tale - the story itself and the insight it gives into Soho at the time and when she revisited years later; how she came to be there at all; how the book came to be blocked when she first tried for publication (that story is added at the end).

She went on to have a very successful career as an artist, coming back to her manuscript in later life. It should be a tragedy she didn't live to see the book in print, and yet it isn't. The real pity is that she didn't publish earlier and have the time to write more about her life.